Millennium:	2nd millennium
Centuries:	18th century – 19th century – 20th century
Decades:	1820s  1830s  1840s  – 1850s –  1860s  1870s  1880s
Years:	1847 1848 1849 – 1850 – 1851 1852 1853

1850 in topic:

Humanities

Archaeology – Architecture – Art – Literature – Music

By country

Australia – Canada – France – Germany – Mexico – South Africa – US – UK

Other topics

Rail Transport – Science – Sports

Lists of leaders

Colonial Governors – State leaders

Birth and death categories

Births – Deaths

Establishments and disestablishments categories

Establishments – Disestablishments

Works category

Works

v · d · e

1850 in other calendars

Gregorian calendar	1850 MDCCCL
Ab urbe condita	2603
Armenian calendar	1299 ԹՎ ՌՄՂԹ
Bahá'í calendar	6 – 7
Bengali calendar	1257
Berber calendar	2800
British Regnal year	13 Vict. 1 – 14 Vict. 1
Buddhist calendar	2394
Burmese calendar	1212
Byzantine calendar	7358 – 7359
Chinese calendar	己酉年十一月十九日 (4486/4546-11-19) — to — 庚戌年十一月廿八日 (4487/4547-11-28)
Coptic calendar	1566 – 1567
Ethiopian calendar	1842 – 1843
Hebrew calendar	5610 – 5611
Hindu calendars
- Bikram Samwat	1906 – 1907
- Shaka Samvat	1772 – 1773
- Kali Yuga	4951 – 4952
Holocene calendar	11850
Iranian calendar	1228 – 1229
Islamic calendar	1266 – 1267
Japanese calendar	Kaei 3 (嘉永3年)
Korean calendar	4183
Thai solar calendar	2393
v · d · e

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: 1850

Year 1850 (MDCCCL) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar and a common year starting on Sunday of the 12-day-slower Julian calendar.

Events

January–March

• January 18 – British prime minister Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston, sends ships to blockade the port of Piraeus, ostensibly as a result of the Don Pacifico affair.
• January 20 – The ships of the McClure Arctic Expedition set sail from Plymouth.
• January 29 – Henry Clay introduces the Compromise of 1850 to the U.S. Congress.
• February 28 – The University of Utah opens in Salt Lake City, Utah.
• March 5 – Opening of the Britannia Bridge over the Menai Strait.
• March 7 – United States Senator Daniel Webster gives his "Seventh of March" speech in which he endorses the Compromise of 1850 in order to prevent a possible civil war.
• March 16 – Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter is published.
• March 19 – American Express is founded by Henry Wells & William Fargo.

April–June

• April 4 – Los Angeles, California is incorporated as a city.
• April 15 – San Francisco, California is incorporated as a city.
• April 19 – Clayton-Bulwer Treaty is signed by the United States and Great Britain, allowing both countries to share Nicaragua and not claim complete control over the proposed Nicaragua Canal.
• May 23 – The USS Advance puts to sea from New York to search for John Franklin's Arctic expedition.
• June 1 – The postage stamp issues of Austria begin with a series of imperforate typographed stamps featuring the coat of arms.
• June 3 – The traditional date of Kansas City, Missouri's founding. This is the date on which it is incorporated by Jackson County, Missouri as the "Town of Kansas".

July–September

• July – Taiping Rebellion: Hong Xiuquan orders the general mobilisation of rebel forces.
• July 9
  • Mírzá 'Alí-Muhammad, known as the Báb, is executed by a firing squad in Tabriz, Persia for claiming to be a prophet.
  • Vice President Millard Fillmore becomes the 13th President of the United States following the death of President Taylor.
• August 28 – Richard Wagner's opera Lohengrin premieres.
• September 9
  • California is admitted as the 31st U.S. state.
  • The New Mexico Territory is organized by order of the United States Congress.
• September 13 – First ascent of Piz Bernina, the highest summit of the eastern Alps.
• September 18 – The Fugitive Slave Law is passed by the United States Congress.
• September 29 – The Catholic hierarchy is re-established in England and Wales by Pope Pius IX.

October–December

• October 1 – The University of Sydney (the oldest in Australia) is founded.
• October 19 – Phi Kappa Sigma International Fraternity was founded at the University of Pennsylvania.
• October 28 – Delegate Edward Ralph May delivers speech on behalf of African American suffrage to the Indiana Constitutional Convention.
• November – Taiping Rebellion: The first clashes of the Taiping Rebellion occur between Imperialist militia and the Heavenly Army.
• November 29 – The treaty called Punctation of Olmütz is signed in Olomouc. It means diplomatic capitulation of Prussia to the Austrian Empire, which takes over the leadership of the German Confederation.
• December 16 – The first settlers for the settlement of Christchurch arrive at the Port of Lyttelton (New Zealand).

Date unknown

• The American System of Watch Manufacturing starts in Roxbury, Massachusetts, U.S.A. (the Waltham Watch Company).
• Bingley Hall, the world's first purpose-built exhibition hall, opens in Birmingham, England.
• Allan Pinkerton forms the North-Western Police Agency, later the Pinkerton National Detective Agency.
• Harriet Tubman becomes an official conductor of the Underground Railroad.
• The temperance organisation, International Organisation of Good Templars, is established in Utica, New York, as the order of the Knights of Jericho.
• St. Mary’s Institute (the future University of Dayton) is founded in Dayton, OH.
• US census shows that 11.2% of the population classed as "Negro" are of mixed race.
• The city of Manchester reaches 400,000 inhabitants.
• Europeans make up 22% of the world population.
• 1850 – 1880 – 144,000 East Indian laborers go to Trinidad and 39,000 East Indians come to Jamaica.
• University of Rochester is founded in Rochester, NY.
• Lehman Brothers is established in Montgomery, Alabama.

Ongoing

• Great Famine in Ireland

Births

January–March

• January – John Barclay Armstrong, Texas Ranger and U.S. Marshal (d. 1913)
• January 4 – Frederick York Powell, English historian and scholar (d. 1904)
• January 6 – Eduard Bernstein, German social democratic theoretician and politician (d. 1932)
• January 6 – Xaver Scharwenka, Polish-German composer (d. 1924)
• January 10 – John Wellborn Root, American architect (d. 1891)
• January 11 – Philipp von Ferrary, Italian stamp collector (d. 1917)
• January 14 – Pierre Loti, French sailor and writer (d. 1923)
• January 15
  • Mihai Eminescu, Romanian romantic poet (d. 1889)
  • Leonard Darwin, son of the British naturalist Charles Darwin (d. 1943)
  • Sofia Kovalevskaya, Russian mathematician (d. 1891)
• January 17 – Aleksandr Taneyev, Russian composer (d. 1918)
• January 18 – Seth Low, American educator (d. 1916)
• January 19 – Augustine Birrell, English author and politician (d. 1933)
• January 24
  • Hermann Ebbinghaus, German psychologist (d. 1909)
  • Mary Noailles Murfree, American novelist (d. 1922)
• January 27
  • John Collier, British writer and painter (d. 1934)
  • Edward Smith, captain of the Titanic (d. 1912)
  • Samuel Gompers, American labor union leader (d. 1924)
• January 28 – Edward Merritt Hughes, U.S. Navy officer (d. 1903)
• January 29
  • Ebenezer Howard, British urban planner (d. 1928)
  • Lawrence Hargrave, Australian engineer (d. 1915)
• February 12 – William Morris Davis, American geographer (d. 1934)
• February 14 – Kiyoura Keigo, Prime Minister of Japan (d. 1942)
• February 15 – Albert B. Cummins, American political figure (d. 1926)
• February 17 – Alf Morgans, Premier of Western Australia (d. 1933)
• February 18 – George Henschel, English musician (d. 1934)
• February 23 – César Ritz, Swiss hotelier (d. 1918)
• February 27
  • Henry Huntington, American railroad pioneer and art collector (d. 1927)
  • Laura E. Richards, American author (d. 1943)
• March 7
  • Tomáš Masaryk, President of Czechoslovakia (d. 1937)
  • Champ Clark, American politician (d. 1921)
  • Éphrem-A. Brisebois, Canadian police officer (d. 1890)
  • Georg von Vollmar, Socialist politician in Bavaria (d. 1922)
• March 9 – Hamo Thornycroft, British sculptor (d. 1925)
• March 10 – Spencer Gore, British tennis player and cricketer (d. 1906)
• March 13 – Hugh John Macdonald, premier of Manitoba (d. 1929)
• March 26 – Edward Bellamy, American author (d. 1898)
• March 31 – Charles Doolittle Walcott, American invertebrate paleontologist (d. 1927)

April–June

• April 8 – John Peters, American 19th century baseball player (d. 1924)
• April 9 – Julius Wernher, German-born British businessman and art collector (d. 1912)
• April 10 – Fanny Davenport, actress (d. 1898)
• April 11 – Isidor Rayner, U.S. senator (d. 1912)
• April 12 – Nikolai Golitsyn, Prime Minister of Russia (d. 1925)
• April 13 – Arthur Matthew Weld Downing, British astronomer (d. 1917)
• April 15
  • William Thomas Pipes, Nova Scotia politician (d. 1909)
  • Edmund Peck, Canadian missionary (d. 1924)
• April 16 – Paul von Breitenbach, German railway planner (d. 1930)
• April 18 – Joseph Labadie, American labor organizer (d. 1933)
• April 20 – Daniel Chester French, American sculptor (d. 1931)
• April 23 – Agda Montelius, Swedish feminist (d. 1920)
• April 24 – Murdo MacKenzie, Scottish-Brazilian rancher (d. 1939)
• April 26
  • Harry Bates, British sculptor (d. 1899)
  • James Drake, Australian politician (d. 1915)
• April 27 – Hans Hartwig von Beseler, German soldier (d. 1921)
• April 29 – George Murdoch, first mayor of Calgary (d. 1910)
• May 1 – Prince Arthur of the United Kingdom (d. 1942)
• May 3 – Johnny Ringo, American cowboy (d. 1882)
• May 4 – Emanuel Schiffers, Russian chess player (d. 1904)
• May 7 – Anton Seidl, Hungarian conductor (d. 1898)
• May 8 – Ross Barnes, U.S. baseball player (d. 1915)
• May 10 – Thomas Lipton, Scottish merchant and yachtsman (d. 1931)
• May 12
  • Henry Cabot Lodge, American statesman (d. 1924)
  • Charles McLaren, 1st Baron Aberconway, Scottish Liberal politician and jurist (d. 1934)
• May 12 – Frederick Holder, premier of South Australia (d. 1909)
• May 14 – Alva Adams, Governor of Colorado (d. 1922)
• May 18 – Oliver Heaviside, British engineer (d. 1925)
• May 21 – Giuseppe Mercalli, Italian volcanologist (d. 1914)
• May 26 – James Kenyon, British pioneer of cinematography (d. 1925)
• May 27 – Thomas Neill Cream, serial killer (d. 1892)
• May 28 – Frederic William Maitland, English jurist and historian (d. 1906)
• May 30 – Frederick Dent Grant, U.S. soldier and statesman (d. 1912)
• May 31 – Alphonse Penaud, French aeronautical pioneer (d. 1880)
• June 2
  • Jesse Boot, 1st Baron Trent, British businessman (d. 1931)
  • Edward Albert Sharpey-Schafer, responsible for diabetes mellitus (d. 1935)
• June 3 – Albert M. Todd, American businessman and politician (d. 1931)
• June 5 – Pat Garrett, American bartender and sheriff (d. 1908)
• June 6 – Karl Ferdinand Braun, German physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1918)
• June 12 – Roberto Ivens, Portuguese explorer of Africa (d. 1898)
• June 15 – Charles Hazelius Sternberg, American fossil collector and amateur paleontologist (d. 1943)
• June 18 – Cyrus Hermann Kotzschmar Curtis, American publisher (d. 1933)
• June 21 – Daniel Carter Beard, U.S. scouting pioneer (d. 1941)
• June 22 – Ignaz Goldziher, Jewish Hungarian orientalist (d. 1921)
• June 24 – Horatio Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener, British field marshal and statesman (d. 1916)
• June 27
  • Ivan Vazov, Bulgarian poet (d. 1921)
  • Lafcadio Hearn, Greco-Japanese author (d. 1904)
  • Jørgen Pedersen Gram, Danish mathematician (d. 1916)

July–September

• July 2 – Robert Ridgway, American ornithologist (d. 1929)
• July 8 – Charles Rockwell Lanman, American Sanskrit scholar (d. 1941)
• July 11 – Annie Armstrong, American missionary leader (d. 1938)
• July 12
  • Newell Sanders, American businessman and politician (d. 1938)
  • Otto Schoetensack, German anthropologist (d. 1912)
• July 15 – Mother Cabrini, American saint (d. 1917)
• July 20 – John G. Shedd, American businessman (d. 1926)
• July 28 – William Whittingham Lyman, U.S. vintner (d. 1921)
• July 31
  • Robert Love Taylor, Tennessee congressman (d. 1912)
  • Robert Planquette, French composer of stage musicals (d. 1903)
• August – Bernardo Reyes, Mexican general (d. 1913)
• August 5 – Guy de Maupassant, French writer (d. 1893)
• August 6 – Henri Chantavoine, French writer (d. 1918)
• August 9 – Johann Büttikofer, Swiss zoologist (d. 1929)
• August 13 – Philip Bourke Marston, English poet (d. 1887)
• August 14 – W. W. Rouse Ball, British mathematician (d. 1925)
• August 30 – Marcelo H. del Pilar, Filipino writer and journalist (d. 1896)

October–December

• October 1 – David R. Francis, American politician (d. 1927)
• October 1 – Thomas Vincent Welch, New York Assemblyman (d. 1903)
• October 26 – Grigore Tocilescu, Romanian historian, archaeologist, epigrapher and folkorist, author of many books on ancient Dacia (d. 1909)
• November 2 – Antonio Jacobsen, maritime artist (d. 1921)
• November 13 – Robert Louis Stevenson, Scottish writer (d. 1894)

Date unknown

• Hortensia Antommarchi, Colombian poet (d. 1915)

Deaths

January–March

• January 2 – Manuel de la Peña y Peña, interim President of Mexico (b. 1789)
• January 20 – Adam Gottlob Oehlenschläger, Danish poet and playwright (b. 1779)
• January 22
  • William Joseph Chaminade, French Catholic priest (b. 1761)
  • Saint Vincent Pallotti, Italian missionary (b. 1795)
• January 26 – Francis Jeffrey, Scottish judge and literary critic (b. 1773)
• January 27
  • Johann Gottfried Schadow, German sculptor (b. 1764)
  • Philipp Roth, composer (b. 1779)
• February 4 – Daniel Turner, officer in the United States Navy (b. 1794)
• February 20 – Valentín Canalizo, acting president of Mexico (b. 1794)
• February 23 – Matthew Whitworth-Aylmer, 5th Baron Aylmer, British military officer and colonial administrator (b. 1775)
• February 25 – Daoguang Emperor of the Qing dynasty of China (b. 1782)
• February 27 – Samuel Adams, Democratic Governor of the State of Arkansas (b. 1805)
• March 3 – Oliver Cowdery, U.S. religious leader (b. 1806)
• March 13
  • Juan Martín de Pueyrredón y O'Dogan, Argentine general and politician (b. 1776)
  • Owen Stanley, British naval officer and explorer of New Guinea (b. 1811)
• March 26 – Samuel Turell Armstrong, U.S. political figure (b. 1784)
• March 27 – Wilhelm Beer, German banker and astronomer (b. 1797)
• March 28 – Gerard Brandon, Governor of Mississippi (b. 1788)
• March 31 – John C. Calhoun, 7th Vice President of the United States (b. 1782)

April–June

• April 7 – William Lisle Bowles, English poet and critic (b. 1762)
• April 9 – William Prout, English chemist and physician (b. 1785)
• April 12 – Adoniram Judson, U.S. Baptist missionary (b. 1788)
• April 16 – Marie Tussaud, French wax sculptor (b. 1761)
• April 17 – Jan Krukowiecki, Polish general (b. 1772)
• April 22 – Friedrich Robert Faehlmann, Estonian philologist and physician (b. 1798)
• April 23 – William Wordsworth, English poet (b. 1770)
• April 24 – John Norvell, U.S. newspaperman and senator (b. 1789)
• May 1 – Henri Marie Ducrotay de Blainville, French zoologist and anatomist (b. 1777)
• May 10 – Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac, French chemist and physicist (b. 1778)
• May 12 – Frances Sargent Osgood, U.S. poet (b. 1811)
• May 21 – Christoph Friedrich von Ammon, German theological writer and preacher (b. 1766)
• May 24
  • Jane Porter, English novelist (b. 1776)
  • Michał Gedeon Radziwiłł, Polish noble (b. 1778)
• May 31 – Giuseppe Giusti, Tuscan satirical poet (b. 1809)
• June 9 – John Green Crosse, English surgeon
• June 16 – William Lawson, British explorer of New South Wales (b. 1774)
• June 19 – Margaret Fuller, American journalist (b. 1810)
• June 30 – Richard Dillingham, American Quaker teacher (b. 1823)

July–September

• July 2 – Robert Peel, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (b. 1788)
• July 4 – William Kirby, English entomologist (b. 1759)
• July 7 – Timothy Hackworth, British steam locomotive engineer
• July 8 – Prince Adolphus of the United Kingdom, 1st Duke of Cambridge (b. 1774)
• July 9
  • The Báb, Persian founder of the Bábí Faith (b. 1819) (executed by a firing squad)
  • Zachary Taylor, 12th President of the United States (b. 1784)
  • Jean Pierre Boyer, President of Haiti (b. 1776)
• July 12 – Robert Stevenson, Scottish lighthouse engineer (b. 1772)
• July 14 – August Neander, German theologian and church historian (b. 1789)
• July 16 – Julia Glover, Irish-born British stage actress (b. ca. 1779)
• July 25 – Richard Barnes Mason, military governor of California (b. 1797)
• August 3 – Jacob Jones, U.S. Navy officer (b. 1768)
• August 6
  • Edward Walsh, Irish poet (b. 1805)
  • Hone Heke, Maori chief and war leader
• August 13 – Martin Archer Shee, Irish painter and president of the Royal Academy (b. 1770)
• August 17 – General José de San Martín, Argentine military and South American independence hero (b. 1778)
• August 18
  • Charles Arbuthnot, British Tory politician (b. 1767)
  • Honoré de Balzac, French author (b. 1799)
• August 22 – Nikolaus Lenau, Austrian poet (b. 1802)
• August 26 – King Louis-Philippe of France (b. 1773)
• August 27 – Thomas Kidd, English classical scholar and schoolmaster (b. 1770)
• September 2 – Charles Watkin Williams-Wynn, British Tory politician (b. 1775)
• September 12 – Presley O'Bannon, officer in the United States Marine Corps (b. 1784)
• September 22 – Johann Heinrich von Thünen, German economist (b. 1783)
• September 23 – José Gervasio Artigas, Uruguayan revolutionary (b. 1764)

October–December

• October 2 – Sarah Biffen, English painter (b. 1784)
• October 29 – Marmaduke Williams, Democratic-Republican U.S. Congressman from North Carolina (b. 1774)
• November 2 – Richard Dobbs Spaight, Jr., Democratic governor of the U.S. state of North Carolina (b. 1796)
• November 3 – Thomas Ford, governor of Illinois (b. 1800)
• November 4 – Gustav Schwab, German classical scholar (b. 1792)
• November 9 – François-Xavier-Joseph Droz, French writer on ethics and political science (b. 1773)
• November 19 – Richard Mentor Johnson, Vice President of the United States (b. 1780)
• November 22 – Lin Zexu, Chinese politician (b. 1785)
• November 30 – Germain Henri Hess, Swiss chemist and doctor (b. 1802)
• December 4
  • Robert Gilfillan, Scottish poet (b. 1798)
  • William Sturgeon, English physicist and inventor (b. 1783)
• December 10
  • Józef Bem, Polish general (b. 1794)
  • François Sulpice Beudant, French mineralogist and geologist (b. 1787)
• December 22 – William Plumer, U.S. lawyer and lay preacher (b. 1759)
• December 24 – Frédéric Bastiat French author and economist (b. 1801)
• December 28 – Heinrich Christian Schumacher, German astronomer (b. 1780)

Date unknown

• Edward Bickersteth, English evangelical divine (b. 1786)
• Elizabeth Simcoe, wife of John Graves Simcoe (b. 1762)
• Nur Singh, regent of Manipur
• Tan Tock Seng, Singaporean businessman philanthropist
• William Hamilton Maxwell, Scots-Irish novelist (b. 1792)

References